A discussion going on on the email list right now centers around whether (or why) we should pray the Lord's Prayer every week. Last week, we used a special benediction, and neglected to say the Lord's Prayer; some disliked that change, and others appreciated the break from the repetition.

I think this is part of a much larger question, particularly among emerging congregations, as to what role the liturgy should play in the life of the church ("liturgy" being understood in the narrower sense of repetition of words, customs, etc. understood to have special meaning, rather than in the broader sense of that which the church does in worship). There are some who stand with mainstream evangelicalism in seeing liturgy as a barrier between the person and God, the repetition as standing in the way of the experience or becoming rote and meaningless; others stand with our Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and high-church Protestant brethren and sistren (...?) in seeing the repetition and regularity as ways to more deeply experience God.

I personally lean towards the high-church camp as opposed to the low-church camp, and I could get into the theology of that, but I don't want to abuse the bully pulpit - so I'm opening this discussion. What role should liturgy play in Tribe - and what is the role of Christian charity in our respecting one another's unique ways of encountering God both inside and outside of the congregational worship service? How can we do liturgy without it becoming rote and repetitive - or is the very repetitiveness of the liturgy one of its values? Is there a way we as Tribe can both participate in the liturgical legacy of the 2,000 year old church and do it in our own idiomatic way? Is that even desirable?

LOS ANGELES, MINNEAPOLIS — Synagogue 3000 (S3K) and Emergent have
announced a ground-breaking meeting to connect Jewish and Christian
leaders who are experimenting with innovative congregations and trying
to push beyond the traditional categories of “left” and “right.”

In
their first-ever formal gathering, emerging leaders from across the
United States will confer during the inaugural session of the S3K
Leadership Network’s Working Group on Emergent Sacred Communities,
which takes place January 16-17, 2006, at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute
in Simi Valley, California. They will share experiences and exchange
ideas about reinventing the meaning and practice of community in their
respective faith traditions.

Prominent Emergent Christian
theologian Brian McLaren (A New Kind of Christian, A Generous
Orthodoxy) has met with Synagogue 3000’s leadership three times in
recent months to discuss shared concerns, particularly surrounding
attempts by younger Christians and Jews to express their spiritual
commitments through social justice. “We have so much common ground on
so many levels,” he notes. “We face similar problems in the present, we
have common hopes for the future, and we draw from shared resources in
our heritage. I’m thrilled with the possibility of developing
friendship and collaboration in ways that help God’s dreams come true
for our synagogues, churches, and world.”

S3K and Emergent
will convene pioneering rabbis, pastors, artists, and leaders who are
reaching out to the unaffiliated and others who are not attracted to
mainstream congregations. An open discussion with leading clergy in
mainstream synagogues will address the relationship between the
congregational establishment and emerging groups. An evening lecture
program will feature Emergent scholar Ryan K. Bolger (Emerging
Churches: Creating Christian Community in Postmodern Cultures), in
dialogue with two renowned experts on religion and generational change,
Steven M. Cohen (The Jew Within) and Wade Clark Roof (A Generation of
Seekers, Spiritual Marketplace, Bridging Divided Worlds)

S3K
Senior Fellow Lawrence A. Hoffman (Rethinking Synagogues: A New
Vocabulary for Congregational Life, forthcoming) stressed the
importance of building committed religious identity through
conversation across faith lines. “We inhabit an epic moment,” he said,
“nothing short of a genuine spiritual awakening. It offers us an
opportunity unique to all of human history: a chance for Jews and
Christians to do God’s work together, not just locally, but nationally,
community by community, in shared witness to our two respective faiths.”

According
to Emergent-U.S. National Coordinator Tony Jones (The Sacred Way:
Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life), this meeting has historic
possibilities. “As emerging Christian leaders have been pushing through
the polarities of left and right in an effort to find a new, third way,
we’ve been desperate to find partners for that quest,” he said. “It’s
with great joy and promise that we partner with the leaders of S3K to
talk about the future and God’s Kingdom.”

Not only are many
Jewish religious communities looking to the experiences of Christian
innovators, especially in the context of worship that engages the
unaffiliated, but they are seeing a similar paradigm shift from the
Baby Boomer individualistic seeker mode to an emergent Generation
X/post-GenX search for spirituality in community. S3K Director of
Research Shawn Landres (After The Passion is Gone: American Religious
Consequences), himself a GenXer active in an emergent Jewish
congregation, said, “We hope to learn from their experience and also to
build bridges by engaging and challenging one another.”

Synagogue
3000 (http://www.synagogue3000.org) is a catalyst for excellence,
empowering congregations and communities to create synagogues that are
sacred and vital centers of Jewish life. Its purpose is to make
synagogues compelling moral and spiritual centers– sacred
communities–for the twenty-first century. From offices located at the
University of Judaism in Los Angeles and the Hebrew Union College in
New York, the S3K staff has created a national congregational
leadership network and is developing a synagogue studies institute. The
S3K Leadership Network comprises two working groups, one on Spiritual
Leadership and the other on Emergent Sacred Communities.

Emergent
(http://www.emergentvillage.com) gathers reflective practitioners and
engaged scholars for conversation and missional action around the
issues of Christian theology, practice,
spirituality, justice and church life. The network developed in the
1990’s and includes a wide range of Christian leaders from progressive
evangelical, mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic backgrounds.